Touch fasteners such as Velcro®, Scotchmate®, and Tri-Hook® were originally produced using textile technology. Two common types of touch fasteners include hook and loop fasteners as well as mushroom and loop fasteners. Hook and loop type fasteners, as they were originally developed and commercialized, consisted of a textile strip including numerous monofilament fastening elements, shaped like hooks, projecting from one surface and another mating textile strip including multifilamented fastening elements woven into loop shaped projections on the opposing mating surface. In the case of mushroom and loop fasteners, the fastener includes a strip containing numerous monofilament projections with mushroom shaped head. The mushroom shaped heads are typically formed by heating the tips of straight monofilament projections until a mushroom head is formed on each projection.
Recently the use of thermoplastic extrusion and molding methods for making touch fasteners have become popular. In the case of hook and loop fasteners, a hook strip may be extruded or molded in a number of different ways. With regards to mushroom and loop fasteners, the mushroom strip may be produced by extruding or molding a strip of material having pin-like projections and subsequently forming mushroom-like heads on the pin-like projections. A mating portion of the touch fastener still typically corresponds to a loop strip produced using woven, knitted, and/or non-woven technologies.
Metal touch fasteners might be made by first forming a plurality of fastening elements in a metal substrate and separately bending each of the individual fastening elements into a deployed state. In such a manufacturing process, the plurality of fastening elements are formed in the substrate using cutting, die cutting, punching, or another appropriate manufacturing process. Punches are then positioned against the individual fastening elements and press the fastening element in order to bend the individual fastening elements into an upright bent position. In this particular type of manufacturing process the plurality of fastening elements are individually bent by separately applying a force directly to each of the fastening elements.